


The Artist

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Draco first person POV, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension, tattooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3668124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 'That Picture' Flash Fest.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>They said a thousand Galleons would buy the best. I should have known. Nobody uses language like that unless they mean him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Artist

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [...he-wants-to-laugh-at-the-irony-he-really-does (That Picture)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/107166) by alekina. 



> Just omg with this art! So many interesting choices Alekina made and so many provocative questions raised. Not to mention it's hot as hell (imo). I wasn't going to write for it, though. I really wasn't. And then Draco woke me up at 3am one morning and just started flooding my head with his voice. I had to write it down or risk losing it, so I got up and wrote, and this happened. I hope it makes people even half as happy as this piece of art has made me. Beta'd by the ever-lovely digthewriter!

It was a back alley deal with a fence. I had no idea it would be him here.

_Him._

His black robes sweep the warehouse floor, his shoes echoing a confident click.

They said a thousand Galleons would buy the best. I should have known. Nobody uses language like that unless they mean him.

He who'll never be afraid to erase the work of the Dark Lord, to vanquish him over and over again. So many artists won't touch a Mark. Like he'll rise from a nonexistent grave and end them, or worse.

I want to laugh that he's here. That it's his face shining in the meager light under which I stand. 

I want to run.

"Take it off," he says.

No _Hello, Malfoy. Fuck off, Malfoy._ No surprise that it's me, although the fence had said the artist didn't need to know; he just needed skin.

He looks at my coat, an implicit command more than a request. Short of breath, I shrug it off and toss it to the side. My sleeves are already rolled up. 

In a fatalistic moment, I turn my palms toward him.

He meets my eyes.

He's so beautiful, Dark like this, and I almost falter where I stand. 

He'll never be truly Dark. His business is removal. His business, as always, is Good. But I see that some of it has crept into him all the same: the pain he leaches, the agony of memory etched into flesh, absorbed into his own. 

The guilt.

His gaze drops to the Mark, and he draws his wand from the holster so sharply, it's only instinct to draw on him, too. He glances at my wand hand as if it's a trifle.

And I'm not holding it on him. I can't. I point it at the floor, down at my side. I hold it like a security blanket, not a weapon.

There is no weapon against him.

He steps in close. "Hold still." His free hand grasps my left shoulder. He's strong. There is no hesitation in him about touching me. I wonder how many times he's done this.

I wonder if he touches everyone the way he's touching me now – as though he's earned the right. 

As though he's never known fear.

Like I mean nothing to him. 

Like this means everything.

The tip of his wand touches to my arm, and all thought vanishes.

There is only the sudden agony of transformation, something beyond pain. 

I gasp, my elbow pulling into my side reflexively. I make a fist as the burn tendrils down to my wrist.

There is a sickening flash of green, the beginnings of a whisper. Parseltongue erupts into the air around us.

"Look away," he instructs.

But I can't. My skin is prickling with heat, and the ink is moving, the black siphoned into his wand even as the snake comes alive and strikes from my skin.

"Away, I said!" And before I know what he means to do, his hand comes up and pushes my head to the side, capable fingers spanning the back of my skull.

I pant and stare down at the ground, at how the magic reflects there in a rancid puddle. But I can breathe now. I feel my pulse through my whole body. I feel it in the unwavering palm of his hand, warm against me. He casts a spell I've never heard, and the steadiness in his voice soothes me instantly. 

I'm not moving. I'm not breaking. I don't shirk or shiver or flinch. My legs feel solid under me in a way they perhaps never have.

His nails scratch, gentle, over my scalp while he works.

My hair falls over my face, and I close my eyes. 

Suddenly the pain intensifies, and I grit my teeth. He pulls a sound from me, a piteous moan, and then his hand has shifted yet again. 

He covers my mouth. 

"Shh…" His touch is powerful and shockingly tender. I'm grateful – I'm bloody _grateful_ \-- for how his hand muffles the sounds I cannot help but make. 

As his magic pulls the Dark out of me -- now a dull, throbbing tug -- I gasp again. My lips part against his skin, and I taste the salt sting of him. I close my teeth on the soft flesh of his hand. 

"Shh…" he chides, and my moans turn to whimpers. 

I fall into a trust so deep I didn't know myself capable.

I feel his concentration, his unfathomable magic, and I give myself to it.

I release the fist I'd made with my left hand and feel it leave me like a sigh.

I know I'll never hear his horrible ragged whisper of a voice in my head again. He's left my body, and I'd had no idea he had been there so long or had been so entrenched – that it had all been there, under my skin.

I'm panting as Potter's hand slips to cup my jaw. It's only for a moment. It's only to turn my face back toward him. And yet I know I'll feel those fingers -- the callused pads, his insistence so firm and sweet -- for the rest of my life.

He drops his hand and holsters his wand. He nods to my arm. "It'll heal in a matter of minutes. Maybe an hour."

I look at myself, at the magic pulsing around where he worked. I can already see that the Mark is entirely gone. I cannot yet see what will take its place.

"What is it?" My voice comes out rough. I tuck my own wand away finally and then turn my full attention on my arm. I rotate my hand, flexing the muscles, and view this newness, this changed self.

"I don't know."

I shoot him a quizzical frown, rubbing over the tingling sensation. "What do you mean you don't know?"

"It's different for everyone. It will be whatever you most need."

He meets my gaze again, and I want so many things in that moment, it overwhelms me. As though he senses this, he blinks. I see myself mirrored in his dark eyes. I have to wonder if he's a Seer, with the way he's looking at me, looking _into_ me.

I have to wonder if he siphoned more than the pain.

If he knows that I'd drop to my knees right now for him.

"Goodnight, Malfoy." He turns and walks away.

When he's halfway across the warehouse, I call his name like a Summoning spell. It's a sound I never thought I'd hear myself make again.

"Harry!"

He turns part-way. He gives me what at first looks like a smirk. 

But it's not. 

It's a smile.

He strides away from me without another word. His steps echo softer to my ears until he's gone.

I watch the empty doorway for several long moments. Then I look down at my arm, now fully healed.

I look down at the zigzag of it and frown.

A bolt of lightning, smaller than my Mark was. 

Simple. Black. Unremarkable.

Unmistakable.

_It will be whatever you most need._

I can't help myself. I throw my head back and laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very welcome. You may leave them here or over at [Livejournal](http://hd-remix.livejournal.com/90497.html).


End file.
